Ven. Arthur Bell

(alias FRANCIS)

Friar Minor and English martyr, b. at
Temple-Broughton near Worcester, 13 January, 1590; d. at London,
11 December, 1643. When Arthur was eight his father died and his
mother gave him in charge of her brother Francis Daniel, a man of
wealth, learning and piety, who sent him at the age of twenty-four
to the English college at St.-Omer; thence he went to Spain to
continue and complete his studies. Having been ordained priest, he
received the habit of the Franciscan Order at Segovia, 8 August,
1618, and shortly after the completion of his novitiate was called
from Spain to labour in the restoration of the English province.
He was one of the first members of the Franciscan community at
Douai, where he subsequently fulfilled the offices of guardian and
professor of Hebrew. In 1632 Bell was sent to Scotland as first
provincial of the Franciscan province there; but his efforts to
restore the order in Scotland were unsuccessful and in 1637 he
returned to England, where he laboured until November, 1643, when
he was apprehended as a spy by the parliamentary troops at
Stevenage in Hertfordshire and committed to Newgate prison.

The circumstances of his trial show
Bell's singular devotedness to the cause of religion and his
desire to suffer for the Faith. When condemned to be drawn and
quartered it is said that he broke forth into a solemn Te Deum and
thanked his judges profusely for the favour they were thus
conferring upon him in allowing him to die for Christ. The cause
of his beatification was introduced at Rome in 1900. He wrote "The
History, Life, and Miracles of Joane of the Cross" (St.-Omer,
1625). He also translated from the Spanish of Andrew a Soto "A
brief Instruction how we ought to hear Mass" (Brussels,
1624).